I'm an beside ER nurse netting over $160k/year raising a family of 4. I love my job and have enjoyed being a nurse for over 15 years. I won't quit my job. I love it too much, but anything could happen that would make me unable to work as a nurse. Who know! This thought led me into studying about becoming financially free and building generational wealth. The main reason for this is to continue to do medical missions around the world even when I'm dead. Of course another reason is to make sure my family is taken care of. After studying the many ways of becoming wealthy, I chose to go the real estate investing route. At the same time my wife and I are in the very beginning phases of building my family home. We bought a lot with cash 2 years ago with plans to build in 2024. 2024 was a bad year for my family. We had many mishaps and health problems to deal with. We want to build our house in 2025. We have a builder and the plans are very close to getting finished. The estimated cost of the home build is a minimum of $650k. Our only debts are a 2.875% mortgage with a balance of $124k only paying $897/month on an appraised value of $325k, daily driver car of $370/month, and use a credit card for monthly expenses, but pay the balance off with every pay check. We have retirement accounts, a small private stock market account, and an emergency fund.
I am tired of living the rat race and now I'm in a mindset where I am okay taking risks to jump into real estate investing. I have been looking at the St. Louis market for the last year and have not made the jump into real estate. After talking things through with the boss "wife" I finally received the okay to invest into real estate. I have also been talking with some people in the business. Some who are major players doing big stuff. I of course want to start small.

My dilemma is: I was approved through work to get a forgivable $12,500 down payment assistance on a "primary home" near where I work. The properties are limited to certain areas of the cities. I would benefit from this program because it would decrease my 1:30-2 hours commute down to under 30 minutes. It would be a second mortgage that I wouldn't be able to use as an investment property for a certain period of time. Through the program I can buy a single family up to a 4plex with a $300k Max purchase price. Yesterday, I applied for a loan through a couple program approved lenders and an investment friendly lender recommended by bigger pockets. At the same time I have my current home as an asset to rent out if my HOA permits it. The Bylaws don't have written restrictions on rentals. I still have to verify with my HOA people. I could use the equity of my home and other lot equity to help with 20% of home build.

Finally to the questions:

1. Will getting this second home loan right now, affect me negatively when I go apply for the construction loan in the next 1-6 months?

2. Should I completely forego the forgivable loan due to certain investment restrictions? I would be missing out on using free OPM.

3. I want to be hands off on managing any investment properties so I can continue to live my life to the fullest with my family and still do the medical missions. Would starting a real estate investment venture hands off using a property management agency be profitable enough to still keep growing in the REI business?

4. Can you throw out names for Missouri resources they have worked with before on investor friendly realtors, tax experts, and investor friendly banks?

Thank you bigger pockets for all the wonderful information you guys make available to people.

Edward Heath

Saint Louis, Missouri

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